Montview Neighborhood Farm, 38 Henry St, Northampton, MA 01060
May 28th all day starting at 9am
RSVP to montview@pedalpeople.com
www.montviewfarm.org
Artists in Context is working in collaboration with C3 (a creative community collective) and Montview Neighborhood Farm to present L/A/N/D, a series of participatory events and projects centered around creative place-making, food-growing, and story-telling. L/A/N/D takes place at Montview Neighborhood Farm, a human-powered farm, forest garden, and learning site situated on three acres of conservation land at the corner of Monview Ave and Henry St near downtown Northampton.
"Raising" is planned as an interactive building event during which participants construct the temporary structure that will serve as the locus of L/A/N/D programming at the farm. The outdoor classroom, part arbor, part gazebo, will be built largely from salvaged materials and feature on-site construction of a reciprocal roof.
Help C3 and Montview Neighborhood Farm raise the roof and see what else is happening at the farm on "Raising" day.
About the structure:
Permaculture looks to ecology for principles, patterns and examples to help design for healthy, resilient and beautiful human systems. We have named the structure we are creating a "gaz-arbor," part Gazebo, part Arbor. The gaz-arbor takes its inspiration from the pattern of the honey comb. Bees are able to calculate, design, and construct a hexagon structure that provides the most living and storage space for their larvae, honey and pollen utilizing the least resources and energy.
Like the honey comb the gaz-arbor is a public gathering space that feeds the neighborhood and greater community with ideas and inspiration to pollinate a cultural transformation within the landscape from that of scarcity, pollution, and oppression to abundance, health and solidarity.
The gaz-arbor is built with black locust posts (Robinia pseudoacacia) an incredibly rot resistant wood often referred to as natures answer to pressure treated wood. Considered a waste wood by many, the tree is in the Fabaceae (Pea) family and hosts a bacteria on its roots that takes atmospheric nitrogen and transforms it into a form of nitrogen that plants can uptake. Nitrogen (N) is one of the three basic nutrients that all plants need to thrive.
The gaz-arbor roof is reciprocal, also known as a Mandala roof, and has been used since the twelfth century in Chinese and Japanese architecture. Its assembly resembles the pattern of the spiral and consists of mutually supportive rafters.
The neighborhood will come together on May 28th to raise the roof in an event titled 'the raising'. The Montview Neighborhood is a community supported farm and like the rafters in the roof depends on a larger network of neighbors, artists and community members for its support.
The function of the gaz-arbor will be a community gathering space used, among other things, for potlucks, as an outdoor classroom and will feature edible vines to provide shade.
